“I’m sorry,” said Lulu; “I’d like very much to have you go, for my own sake as well as yours, for there will be no lady in the party, and no girl but me, if you don’t go.”
“But you’ll not mind that, with such a kind, tender father as yours,” Marian said, a little tremulously, and with a wistful glance into Lulu’s bright, happy face.
“No, I’d not mind going to the world’s end with papa, and nobody else,” returned Lulu, her cheeks flushing and her eyes shining with joy and filial love. “But how did you find out what a dear, kind father I have?”
“Surely, Miss, just the way he looks at you (as if to his mind there was nothing else so sweet and fair in all the world) is enough to tell the tale to any one but the dullest of the dull.”
The girl sighed involuntarily as she spoke, and turned away—busying herself at the china closet—to hide her emotion.
“And you have none, I suppose? Oh, I am so sorry for you!” Lulu said, in a gentle, pitying tone.
Marian turned toward her a pale, set face, opened her lips to speak, but closed them again as her mother entered the room.
“Good-day, lassie, you look bright and blithe as the morning,” Mrs. McAlpine said, addressing Lulu, with a smile that was sadder than tears; and the little girl noticed that her face was paler than on the previous day, her countenance fuller of grief and woe, though she was evidently striving to be cheerful.
“Did you find your bed comfortable last night?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, ma’am; but I had hardly touched it before I went fast asleep, and I never moved, I believe, till the sun was up.”